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At Least 58 Killed As Militants Storm Police Academy In Pakistan


The bodies of the police cadets (covered by blankets) and the body of a suspected militant lay on the ground outside a hospital after an attack by suspected militants at a police training center in Quetta on October 25.
The bodies of the police cadets (covered by blankets) and the body of a suspected militant lay on the ground outside a hospital after an attack by suspected militants at a police training center in Quetta on October 25.

At least 58 police trainees were killed and more than 100 were wounded in an overnight raid by militants on a police academy in southwest Pakistan, officials said.

Health authorities in Balochistan Province said that more than 58 had died and dozens more seriously wounded cadets from the academy outside Quetta had arrived at hospitals.

They said that most of deaths occurred when the militants, who used guns to fight their way into the compound, killing a guard in the process, detonated explosive vests.

Officials said that five to six armed men had attacked the dormitory of the training center on the outskirts of Quetta where cadets were resting and sleeping, provoking a counterterrorism response from the army and Frontier Corps.

Sarfaraz Bugti, Balochistan Province Interior Minister, said more than 200 of the 700 cadets at the academy were immediately rescued "by God's grace."

Security forces killed one of the attackers and two died when they detonated their explosive vests, he said.

Bugti said the hours-long counterterrorism operation mostly ended around 4 a.m. local time, but "cleanup" operations were continuing.

No groups have claimed responsibility. But Major General Sher Afgan, chief of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Balochistan, which led the counteroperation, said the militants belonged to the Al-Alimi faction of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militant group, which is affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban.

"They were in communication with operatives in Afghanistan," he said.

The police academy has come under attack twice in the past, in 2006 and 2008.

With reporting by Dawn, Geo TV, AP, AFP, dpa, Radio Mashaal, and Reuters

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